


Salt and Flame

by Rainfallen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainfallen/pseuds/Rainfallen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>For the Anonymous prompt "Arya/Gendry - Seaside"</b>. </p><p>The Starks visit Storm's End and Arya has an adventure. </p><p>
  <i>Alternate universe in which the Rhaegar and Lyanna debacle never took place.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt and Flame

It took every bit of cunning and a fair bit of the coin she possessed to slip outside the fortress walls.  They jutted high into the sky, hard and harsh, but strangely not as imposing when she looked up at them from the outside.  It was being caged that she hated, being trapped in an unfamiliar place with people she did not know and who could not understand her. 

  


Arya liked the castle itself well enough.  Storm's End was so different from Winterfell, and that made it interesting. One massive tower held all the workings of a keep in its labyrinth belly, from the armory to the Great Hall.  But even within the walls –the tallest she'd ever seen, and thickest, too– the salt wind seemed like a creature all its own, calling to her, rising up from rock and sea to steal her breath.  It made her want to stand in the open air without curtains of stone around her, stare the beast in the face and let it try to blow her down.  She would welcome the attempt. 

  


The stable boy thought she was making a jest when she offered to buy his spare tunic and trousers, and the guard at the outer wall was harder to fool than the ones on the inner gates, but here she was at last, with the walls at her back and the sharp cliff slowly giving ground to a rocky shoreline before her. 

  


Arya's sturdy boots crunched pleasantly on the rocky ground as she picked her way carefully down the coast.  She was not so nimble as Bran, but her steps were sure.  As she edged carefully down a steep rock incline, nearer and nearer to the roaring waves, she wondered if her little brother would take to climbing the walls of the tower here once she and the rest of the family had gone, before she remembered that being Robert Baratheon's squire would leave him little enough time for the games of childhood.  It made her sad. 

  


When she'd struck a healthy distance between herself and the towering walls of the keep, she scrambled atop a moss-covered rock and just _looked_ andlistened to the song of the sea and its creatures.  Arya had seen the sea at White Harbor when she was two and ten, but this was different.  The water was deep and blue, not the slate grey of the North, and the crashing white caps of the waves seemed wilder somehow.  They threw themselves at the massive curtain wall with feral fury and then rushed along the shore, muttering complaints at their failure to break it.  Strange that she should find a Southron wildness that she had not seen in the North. 

  


The faint crunching of rock behind her pulled her out of her thoughts, and she froze for a moment before turning, disappointment curling in her belly like bad meat.  She had been certain her absence would be missed sooner or later, but hadn't expected to be caught quite so soon. 

  


Gendry Baratheon stood a dozen paces behind her with his thumbs tucked inside his sword belt.  With his wind-reddened cheeks, hair blowing madly, and cape billowing behind him, he seemed for a moment almost as wild as she felt.  He just looked at her for the longest time, taking in her ragged peasant's clothes, windswept hair, defiant eyes.  And then he smiled and shook his head and walked toward her. 

  


When he perched on the edge of the rock beside her and glanced at her sidelong, the look he gave her sent her thoughts flying forcibly north to her brother Jon on the Wall.  Jon used to give her that same look, and tell her she was impossible, incorrigible, hopeless.  And then he would smile and muss her hair and whisper that she must never change.  But Gendry wasn't Jon, and Jon was a thousand leagues away. 

  


Arya frowned and looked back out across the water. 

  


Gendry was her cousin, half a Stark in his own right, but his look was nothing but Baratheon. At seven-and-ten, he was almost as tall as his father, with the same square jaw and blue eyes half-hidden behind his dark, dark hair.  If the servants' gossip was to be believed, half of the reason for their visit to Storm's End was because Sansa was to marry him, and Arya believed it. 

  


_Sansa_.  Arya winced. When Sansa heard that she'd snuck away and had to be retrieved by her betrothed, she would be unbearable.

  


"Hello, my lady," Gendry said to her at last, over the persistent roar of the sea.   

  


"Hello," she said gracelessly.  "Did Father send you?  I didn't think I'd be missed so soon."

  


"Oh," he said, and then hesitated a moment.  "I don't think you were," he continued.  "But I saw you go out the gates, and – well, you don't know the land, and it's dreadful rocky about."

  


She turned to face him, frowning.  "You followed me?"  
  


"Of course I followed you.  There are serpents in the sea, you know," he told her admonishingly.  "And giant crabs that could make off with someone your size, no problem.  I just wanted to make sure you didn't get eaten.  Mother would never forgive me."

  


Arya stared at him.  They had been introduced properly when Lord Robert and Aunt Lyanna welcomed them to Storm's End, had spoken a time or two in the feast hall of an evening, and even crossed swords once in the practice yard (to Sansa's absolute horror), but Arya could not say she knew him.  Still, she knew enough to see that he was having a jest at her expense. 

  


"You're lying," she decided.  "No crabs are that big."

  


Gendry's eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled.  He shrugged.  "I like to get outside the castle walls myself sometimes.  I hoped you wouldn't mind the company."

  


She didn't think she minded, so long as he didn't intend to get her into more trouble.  "You aren't going to tell Father, then?"

  


He raised an eyebrow and grinned cheekily.  "No reason.  I escorted you on a walking tour of the grounds.  What's to tell?"

  


Arya returned his grin in spite of herself.

  


"So, do you like it?" he asked after a spell, and gestured to the rocks and waves and circling gulls. 

  


"It could use a few more trees," she told him, "But I like it well enough.  Mayhaps I can come and visit again sometime, after the wedding."

  


He looked over at her quickly.  "Wedding?"

  


Arya rolled her eyes.  "There's no point in being secretive; everyone knows."

  


"Knows... what exactly?"

  


"That you're to wed Sansa, of course!"

  


It started as a sort of choked chuckle in his throat, and then Gendry threw back his head and _laughed_. 

  


Arya frowned at him crossly.  "What's funny?" she demanded.

  


"N-nothing," he chortled.  "Just you." 

  


She punched his arm. 

  


"What kind of a lady are you?" he asked, his face still alight with amusement.

  


"The bad kind," she muttered, feeling almost contrite.   
  


"Oh, none of that," Gendry said, sobering at once.  He reached over and nudged her beneath her chin with a knuckle.  "I like you better than any proper lady I know."

  


Then he pulled away and crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his elbows.  Her face was hot where he had touched her, and the warmth spread down her neck and into her limbs.  She shifted away, and suddenly found the horizon much more interesting than it had been moments before. 

  


It took her a minute to speak again.  "What's funny?  For true, now?"

  


Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him swallow, then heard a sigh.  "My father did ask yours about a marriage.  A new alliance for a new generation, Mother said."

  


Arya frowned at him, discomfort forgotten.  "But?"

  


"They spoke to me before making their decision. And – and I told them I did not wish to wed your sister."

  


She scowled now, sisterly indignation rising.  Sansa could be insufferable at times, but who did this boy think he was to reject her?  "Why not?  Sansa is a better lady than anyone!  She knows everything there is to know about history and music and needlework, and she's beautiful, and – why wouldn't you want to wed her?"

  


He ducked his head, and laughed a little.  "Do you truly not know?"

  


"I wouldn't have asked if I did," she snapped. 

  


Gendry glanced at her for just a moment from behind that disheveled hair, a wry half smile on his face.  He licked his bottom lip and swallowed, and turned back to the sea.  His eyes were still on the crashing waves when he spoke again, but his voice was steady.  "I told them I'd rather wed you.  If you were willing.  Your father said only you could speak to that, so – so here I am."

  


Arya just stared, lips parted and eyes wide.  The tension in his jaw and the tone of his voice and that look he'd had in his eyes... all of these things told her he was not lying.   

  


After a minute, he glanced at her almost shyly.  With the sea wind stirring his hair as wild as her own, and the waves breaking around them, and warmth in her face where his gaze fell, and her heart galloping in her chest, she thought she might be going a bit mad.

  


"I'm wearing your stable boy's clothes," she blurted out.  The smile was back when he looked at her again, and her face was burning, but he didn't know what he was asking of her, and she had to make him understand.  "Those dresses I wear at the feasts – that's not normal," she told him. "I can't sew for anything. I go hunting with my wolf instead of having tea with the ladies.  I'm better with a sword than my brother, and I'm training with a bow now, too.  I'm not going to stop.  I'm not going to change.  Not for anyone."

  


"I'd hope not," he said.  "You're perfect."

  


When she put her hand in his, the same warmth crept up her arm. 

  


And when he leaned in, slowly, and kissed her, it was like catching flame.   


End file.
